I’ve always looked forward to explaining things to my children. When I was just a teenager I made sure to know why the sky was blue and why water boiled, so that some day I could explain it to my kids.

But I always imagined my kids understanding the answer.

For years, Owl and I have experienced mutual frustration with my inability to deliver answers that he can understand. On the bright side, his questions these days are actually coherent most of the time. He no longer asks me what a tree is doing or why I am driving him to school.

Now his questions are actually VALID, but he still can’t understand THE GOD DAMN ANSWER.

That’s not his fault. He’s FOUR. He’s a bright kid. Some day he’ll probably be winning science awards. I’m sure that no one finds it more frustrating than he does. But it still doesn’t make it easy when I’m constantly being badgered for questions that I can’t answer.

He doesn’t just want to know IF he can have a sandwich. He wants to know WHY he can have a sandwich. He wants to understand the PSYCHOLOGY behind my willingness to acquiesce to his request. He doesn’t think that “because you said you were hungry and you asked for a sandwich and it’s lunch time and we have the ingredients to make sandwiches so I considered your request and decided it was reasonable” is sufficient FOR SOME REASON.

He doesn’t just want to know how to make his little McDonald’s toy car go. He wants to know WHY pressing the lever makes it go, and any attempt at explaining physics to him will simply result in a more pressing “WHY?”

Even if he could understand Newtonian physics, asking WHY physics works that way enters a realm of science that Nobel Prize winners have not been able to answer.

This morning, he asked a series of increasingly in-depth questions which basically led to him questioning the entire fabric existence of the world as we know it, and there was no answer I could give him that didn’t involve trying to explain quantum mechanics. A lot of the time I have to settle for “because that’s how things are.”

I’m beginning to wonder if things like religion and superstition weren’t invented by harried moms just trying to shut their kids up. It’s EXHAUSTING, especially when you get to the end of a very long discussion only to feel like it was entirely useless.

Here is a sample transcript from our drive home from daycare this evening:

Me: I… because space isn’t a THING, honey, it’s empty, it’s the place that holds everything else. Things that are IN space have gravity, like planets and the moon.

Owl: And us.

Me: We’re too small to have gravity. Only very big things like planets have gravity.

Owl: Or like those streetlights.

Me: … No… the streetlights don’t have gravity. They’re small.

Owl: They’re bigger than US.

Me: Not big like the EARTH, Owl. Only VERY BIG THINGS have gravity.

Owl: And everything on the Earth is small?

Me: Right.

Owl: Why everything on the Earth is small?

Me: Everything on the Earth is SMALLER THAN THE EARTH, because otherwise it wouldn’t fit on the Earth. Size is relative, right? An elephant is big compared to us, but small compared to the Earth. We are big compared to an ant, but small compared to an elephant. That TREE is big compared to us but small compared to a skyscraper. Right?

Owl: Right. And the Earth is big compared to everything.

Me: No… The sun is bigger than the Earth, right?

Owl: Yeah.

Me: So the Earth is big compared to you and me, but small compared to the sun. The sun is small compared to a bigger star. Stars are small compared to a galaxy. Galaxies are small compared to the whole universe. RIGHT?

Owl: Right. Because space is big.

Me: Yes.

Owl: Even a whole CAR could fit in space.

Me: …Pardon?

Owl: A car. I said A CAR. A CAR could even fit in SPACE!

Me: A car?? Of COURSE a car could fit in space, EVERYTHING is… OH LOOK WE’RE HOME NOW.

And so I am exhausted and frustrated after a mere 5 minutes with my child. And the worst part is knowing that these are the conversations I always thought I would enjoy. I worry a lot, too, that my frequent simmering impatience is going to have a negative effect on his curiosity and self esteem.

I’m hoping that I will enjoy this more, when he actually understands that street lights and cars are smaller than the entire universe. I’m sure he will.

In the mean time, at least PH doesn’t mind this sort of thing. If he were well I think I would hand all child care responsibility to him until Owl developed the ability to understand basic science. As it is, I’m just going to have to find some way to fight my constant frustration.

Any tips?

Maybe I should just introduce him to God.

But then he’d probably want to know why God exists and how God was made and why God happened to make green that particular wavelength and…

PH loves the toddler years. He hated the baby stage, but he loves answering the kind of aggravating questions demanded by our child every minute of every day.

I am not so patient.

My struggle with stupid questions began in childhood.

For several years my only friend was a girl who was funny, generally kind, and shared my love of animals and imaginary play. Unfortunately for her, and me, she wasn’t very scholastic, and tended to ask what I considered to be really stupid questions.

And I didn’t handle it well.

I don’t know why stupidity sets my temper off so much, but I could never just handle stupid questions calmly.

When my friend, who was 12 at the time, asked me what “unpredictable” meant, or asked me what two times eleven was, I couldn’t just calmly define “unpredictable” or say “22” like a normal friend might.

I felt compelled to make her THINK.

“It’s the opposite of predictable. Do you know what predictable means? HOW CAN YOU BE IN GRADE SIX AND NOT KNOW WHAT PREDICTABLE MEANS?”

or

“How can you not know what two times eleven is? The eleven times table is easy! What’s two times one? OKAY NOW DO THAT TWICE.”

To her credit, she handled my flares of temper quite calmly.

But I knew that my meanness got to her, and if she hasn’t been in direct contact with me since we were 14, even turning down an invitation to my wedding, it’s my own fault.

I knew I had a problem, and I really did work on it.

One year I made my New Year’s Resolution “Be nicer to Lucy” and I hung it on my door so I could see it every time I went into my bedroom.

It helped.

I learned to swallow a lot of mean thoughts and give more basic answers to questions that seemed painfully stupid to me. And when I couldn’t do that, I at least managed to be kinder in my explanations.

But I didn’t perfect it.

All through junior high and high school I struggled with responding to questions that I perceived as stupid without biting people’s heads off. I found that quantity mattered. One stupid question I could handle. Maybe even two, or three. But if I heard too many in a day I’d start to snap.

But every year of my life, I have gotten better at keeping my temper when people ask me stupid questions, or don’t seem to understand basic things.

For a while I even believed that I had completely overcome this problem.

If anything, I am frequently praised for my patience with difficult clients, and my ability to explain things clearly to people.

1- You must post the rules2- Answer the questions the tagger set for you in their post3- Create eleven new questions to ask the people you’ve tagged4- Tag eleven people with a link to your post5- Let them know they’ve been tagged

“Sit, sit!” Daycare Lady always says, and I sit on the couch and nurse Owl for 15 minutes or so while she lists everything Owl consumed that day. She nursed her own children past the age of three, so it seems perfectly normal to her.

Not so for all of the kids at the daycare. The older ones tend to be curious about it.

“What is he doing?” a three year old asked me.

“He’s drinking milk,” I told her.

I don’t mind them watching, and Daycare Lady considers it good education for them.

But one little girl gets a little too up close and personal.

She’s just two, with golden hair and big, big blue eyes which stare in fascination at Owl’s face while he roots around and grunts in milky satisfaction. As I nurse, she draws closer and closer, a perplexed look on her face. She points to Owl, and to me, and I tell her “he’s nursing”.

Her big eyes look into mine for a moment, and then return to my breast. Her face draws well into my personal space, which catches Owl’s attention and he stops nursing to look at her in surprise.

Then, her tiny index finger comes out and gently touches my nipple.

“He’s having some milk,” I say.

I wonder – is she remembering her own breastfeeding days? WAS she breastfed, or is this an alien act to her? Maybe it is, because she looks like there’s something she wants to ask me.

Her earnest gaze catches mine, and she points again at my nipple with a smile.